The paper introduces, compares and contrasts formal models of source reliability proposed in the epistemology literature, in particular the prominent models of Bovens and Hartmann and Olsson :127–143, 2011). All are Bayesian models seeking to provide normative guidance, yet they differ subtly in assumptions and resulting behavior. Models are evaluated both on conceptual grounds and through simulations, and the relationship between models is clarified. The simulations both show surprising similarities and highlight relevant differences between these models. Most importantly, however, our (...) evaluations reveal that important normative concerns arguably remain unresolved. The philosophical implications of this for testimony are discussed. (shrink)

Science is a social epistemic enterprise. The complexity of research requires the division of cognitive labor. As a consequence, scientists have to present results and incorporate the results of others into their body of knowledge. This creates the possibility of strategic behavior, leading to phenomena such as publication bias. To analyze the dynamics of strategic behavior in epistemic communities, agent-based modeling suggests itself as a method. The phenomena generated by the developed agent-based simulation model reveal a diverse set of possible (...) dynamics in strategically heterogeneous groups and support the claim that there is a trade-off between a behavioral rule’s efficacy to generate accurate beliefs under optimal conditions and its robustness to variation in the composition of the epistemic environment. (shrink)

Redefreiheit ist häufig als negatives Abwehrrecht aufgefasst worden, und wird dies auch heute noch in vielen Kontexten. Ein solches negatives Abwehrrecht ist jedoch ungeeignet, die der Freiheit zugrundeligenden normativen Gründe vollständig zu realisieren. In diesem Aufsatz wird ein Befähigungsansatz in Stellung gebracht, um eine substanziellere Freiheit zur öffentlichen Rede zu formulieren. Ein zentrales Ergebnis ist die Feststellung, dass die Befähigung zum öffentlichen Sprechen eine korrespsoniderende Befähigung zum Hören verlant; Hören bedeutet dabei nicht nur die sensorische und linguistische Fähigkeit, sprachliche Äußerungen (...) zu verstehen, sondern die Vermögen zu verstehen, wohlwollend zu rezipieren und kritisch zu antworten. (shrink)

This paper examines the basic question of how we can come to form accurate beliefs about the world when we do not fully know how good or bad our evidence is. Here, we show, using simulations with otherwise optimal agents, the cost of misjudging the quality of our evidence. We compare different strategies for correctly estimating that quality, such as outcome‐ and expectation‐based updating. We also identify conditions under which misjudgment of evidence quality can nevertheless lead to accurate beliefs, as (...) well as those conditions where no strategy will help. These results indicate both where people will nevertheless succeed and where they will fail when information quality is degraded. (shrink)

Computational modeling should play a central role in philosophy. In this introduction to our topical collection, we propose a small topology of computational modeling in philosophy in general, and show how the various contributions to our topical collection fit into this overall picture. On this basis, we describe some of the ways in which computational models from other disciplines have found their way into philosophy, and how the principles one found here still underlie current trends in the field. Moreover, we (...) argue that philosophers contribute to computational modeling not only by building their own models, but also by thinking about the various applications of the method in philosophy and the sciences. In this context, we note that models in philosophy are usually simple, while models in the sciences are often more complex and empirically grounded. Bridging certain methodological gaps that arise from this discrepancy may prove to be challenging and fruitful for the further development of computational modeling in philosophy and beyond. (shrink)

In recent years, the receipt and the perception of information has changed in ways which have fueled fears about the fates of our democracies. However, real information on these possibilities or the direction of these changes does not exist. Into this gap, Hahn and colleagues bring the power of Condorcet's (1785) Jury Theorem to show that changes in our information networks have affected voter inter‐dependence so that it is likely that voters are now collectively more ignorant even if individual voter (...) competence remains unchanged. (shrink)

s for the Second Workshop on Implementing Machine Ethics.

Computational modeling should play a central role in philosophy. In this introduction to our topical collection, we propose a small topology of computational modeling in philosophy in general, and show how the various contributions to our topical collection ft into this overall picture. On this basis, we describe some of the ways in which computational models from other disciplines have found their way into philosophy, and how the principles one found here still underlie current trends in the feld. Moreover, we (...) argue that philosophers contribute to computational modeling not only by building their own models, but also by thinking about the various applications of the method in philosophy and the sciences. In this context, we note that models in philosophy are usually simple, while models in the sciences are often more complex and empirically grounded. Bridging certain methodological gaps that arise from this discrepancy may prove to be challenging and fruitful for the further development of computational modeling in philosophy and beyond. (shrink)

Process reliabilism -- Virtue reliabilism: justified belief -- Virtue reliabilism: knowledge -- Knowledge first virtue reliabilism -- The competition -- The safety dilemma -- Lottery cases.

Die vorliegende Untersuchung verfolgt zwei Ziele: erstens die systematische Rekonstruktion der Grundstruktur von Hegels Erkenntnistheorie und Philosophy of Mind auf der Grundlage der Schriften des 'reifen' Systems, insbesondere der Wissenschaft der Logik und der Enzyklopadie. Zweitens die Eroffnung eines wechselseitig fruchtbaren Dialogs zwischen Hegel und der gegenwartigen analytischen Philosophie in den Debatten um Realismus / Antirealismus, Wahrheitstheorie, Externalismus / Internalismus und um die Struktur kognitiver Systeme. Inhaltlich wird der Nachweis gefuhrt, dass im Zentrum von Hegels Philosophy of Mind eine holistische, (...) anti-modulare Theorie des Geistes, im Zentrum seiner Erkenntnistheorie ein anti-skeptischer, anti-reprasentationalistischer, direkter Realismus steht. (shrink)

Virtue epistemology is one of the most flourishing research programmes in contemporary epistemology. Its defining thesis is that properties of agents and groups are the primary focus of epistemic theorising. Within virtue epistemology two key strands can be distinguished: virtue reliabilism, which focuses on agent properties that are strongly truth-conducive, such as perceptual and inferential abilities of agents; and virtue responsibilism, which focuses on intellectual virtues in the sense of character traits of agents, such as open-mindedness and intellectual courage. This (...) volume brings together ten new essays on virtue epistemology, with contributions to both of its key strands, written by leading authors in the field. It will advance the state of the art and provide readers with a valuable overview of what virtue epistemology has achieved. (shrink)

An influential thought-experiment by Derek Parfit sought to establish that people have a preference for unpleasant events to lie in the past rather than the future. In recent discussions of Parfit’s argument, this purported preference is modelled as a discounting phenomenon, as is the tensed emotion of relief, which Arthur Prior argued demonstrated that there is an objective metaphysical difference between the past and the future. Looking at recent work demonstrating some psychological past/future asymmetries that are more clearly instances of (...) discounting I argue that this existing philosophical literature fails to distinguish between what are clearly two quite different psychological phenomena. This affects recent attempts to respond to Prior’s metaphysical argument, because it is not clear that they have identified the right phenomenon to be explained. It also affects Parfit’s thought-experiment, because the purported unitary ‘preference’ may in fact be an amalgam of these two quite different psychological phenomena. (shrink)

The introduction charts Hans-Johann Glock’s academic career, introduces some of his core philosophical views, and provides an overview of the chapters included in the festschrift.

There seems to be a distinctive way in which we can remember events we have experienced ourselves, which differs from the capacity to retain information about events that we can also have when we have not experienced those events ourselves but just learned about them in some other way. Psychologists and increasingly also philosophers have tried to capture this difference in terms of the idea of two different types of memory: episodic memory and semantic memory. Yet, the demarcation between episodic (...) memory and semantic memory remains a contested topic in both disciplines, to the point of there being researchers in each of them who question the usefulness of the distinction between the two concepts. In this paper, I outline a new characterization of the difference between episodic memory and semantic memory, which connects that difference to what is sometimes called the ‘epistemic asymmetry’ between the past and the future, or the ‘epistemic arrow’ of time. My proposal will be that episodic memory and semantic memory exemplify the epistemic asymmetry in two different ways, and for somewhat different reasons, and that the way in which episodic memory exemplifies the epistemic asymmetry is manifest to the remembering subject in a way in which this is not the case for semantic memory. (shrink)

Berlin has become the German place of remembrance for 1968. In other cities, too, students, artists, and professors rose up against authoritarian ways of life and institutions, pointing to the “fascism” of the Nazi period that their parents wished to repress. But remembrance likes the beauty of appearances, and the revolt in Berlin was initially colored by something unreal and playful, a counterpoint led to its conclusion, something both bounded and experimental. This something was lost between 1967 and 1969, though (...) it was even less present outside of Berlin, perhaps because of the delay with which the revolt spread beyond.. (shrink)

José Ángel Gascón’s essay "Where are dissent and reasons in epistemic justification?" is an exposition of a version of a social functionalist epistemology. I agree with Gascón's emphasis on reasons and on taking into account dissent as important parts of epistemology. But I think that these concerns do not require a social functionalist epistemology, but that, on the contrary, Gascón's social functionalist epistemology throws the baby out with the bathwater. It does so by excluding also a traditional, at its core (...) individualistic epistemology, which defines central concepts like 'justified', 'knowledge' still in individualistic terms as the result of a mental cognizing process but is open to social extensions, e.g. concerning cooperation in the acquisition of knowledge or the transfer of knowledge via argumentation. Such a socially open epistemology with an individualistic core – or "open individualistic epistemology" for short – is also the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory. In the following I want to explain and defend this open individualistic epistemology together with the epistemological argumentation theory (sect. 2) and explain on this basis some problems of Gascón’s theory (sect. 3). (shrink)

La grande idée que Hegel a présentée et développée dans la Phénoménologie de l’Esprit, est la découverte de la signification de la négativité. Celle-ci est alors plus qu’une procédure formelle. Qui plus est, la négativité est un concept qui marque la réalité même. D’une part, la négativité montre la réalité comme quelque chose de subjectif, car la négativité en tant que principe formule la position du réel en relation avec soi-même à travers un processus de négation. D’autre part, la négation (...) montre une réalité tendue, douloureuse et éphémère. Hegel arrive à cette idée dans ses débats avec Fichte et Schelling avant tout. Malgré l’interrogation justifiée sur le fondement de la critique de Hegel, la force argumentative de ce concept est pourtant estimable: elle dépend de l’attention portée aux phénomènes concrets, à leurs différences spécifiques et à leur unité substantielle que cette attention rend abordables à une compréhension raisonnée. (shrink)

Architekturkritiker und -historiker verwenden eine Vielzahl von Ausdrücken, um anzugeben, was Bauwerke bedeuten. Es ist beispielsweise die Rede davon, dass sie etwas ausdrücken, repräsentieren, zitieren, manifestieren, darstellen oder aussagen; man kann von Gebäuden lesen, die mehrdeutig sind, als Metaphern fungieren oder auf etwas anspielen. In diesem Aufsatz frage ich, wie Bauwerke bedeuten können, um die Grundzüge einer Theorie der Bedeutungsweisen von Bauwerken und ihren Teilen vorzustellen, die als Rahmen für Einzelanalysen und historische Untersuchungen verwendet werden kann. Anstatt die meist unklaren (...) und oft einander widersprechenden Verwendungsweisen der erwähnten Ausdrücke in der Architekturtheorie vergleichend zu analysieren, präsentiere ich zumindest für einige von ihnen Vorschläge, sie für theoretische Zwecke durch technische Termini zu ersetzen, die in den relevanten Anwendungsfällen anstelle der fraglichen Ausdrücke verwendet werden können. Die Vorschläge beruhen auf der allgemeinen Symboltheorie, die Nelson Goodman in Sprachen der Kunst entwickelt hat, und interpretieren die Bedeutungsweisen von Bauwerken damit als Symbolisierungsweisen. (shrink)

Seit ihrer Verurteilung vor allem im Deutschen Idealismus hatte die Popularphilosophie, in der zweiten Halfte des 18. Jahrhunderts eine der einflussreichsten Stromungen, einen faden Beigeschmack. Dabei verstand sich die Diskussion uber eine Philosophie, die mehr Nahe zum Leben der Menschen suchte, als Teil der umfassenden Selbstverstandnisdebatte von Aufklarung insgesamt. Vor allem die Auseinandersetzung mit der kritischen Philosophie Kants zwang dazu, Anspruch, Grenzen und Moglichkeiten popularer Philosophie zu uberdenken. So wurde Popularitat zu Programm und Problem von Philosophie, damals wie heute. - (...) Der vorliegende Band zeichnet die Geschichte der Popularphilosophie nach: ihre Vorgeschichte, die Diskussion im 18. und ihre Nachklange im 19. und fruhen 20. Jahrhundert bis hin zur gegenwartigen Auseinandersetzung. Since its condemnation, above all by German idealism, popular philosophy, which had been one of the most influential movements of the 18th century, had a negative connotation. The discussion about a philosophy which tried to get closer to peoples lives did however see itself as a part of the widespread debate on self-understanding of Enlightenment as a whole. It was mainly the study of Kant's critical philosophy which forced people to rethink the demands, limitations and possibilties of popular philosophy. Thus popularity became the agenda and the problem of philosophy, then as now. This volume traces the history of popular philosophy: its previous history, the discussion in the 18th century and its reverberations in the 19th and early 20th centuries up to the present time. (shrink)

Die Herausforderung religionsgeschichtlicher Forschung besteht darin, die Erschließung von Quellen in ihren Kontexten und ihre theoriegeleitete Erklärung mit einer historisch-kritischen Reflexion der Wissensproduktion selbst zu verknüpfen. Die Reihe Religionsgeschichtliche Versuche und Vorarbeiten (RGVV) will dieser Komplementarität von historischer Kontextualisierung, theoretischer Verdichtung und disziplinärer Positionierung Rechnung tragen. Studien zu kulturspezifischen Sachzusammenhängen stehen neben vergleichenden Arbeiten, in Form von Monographien oder thematisch fokussierten Sammelbänden.